When the dictionary is more useful than the road map

Sharon and Abbas need a dictionary, not a road map, to negotiate their tortuous journey towards peace, writes Paul McGeough.

Liberated Iraq is so free that when US President George Bush wanted to thank the US troops who did the job, the nearest he would go was Doha, in Qatar.

If this is what freedom means in Iraq, what does peace mean in Israel and the Occupied Territories. If it took war to achieve "freedom", what does it take to achieve peace? And how will we know?

In the US this week it seems that everyone is a liar, including Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. And the lie as acceptable conduct could be detected in the Middle East, where not a lot was as it seemed.

When Bush led King Abdullah and Prime Ministers Sharon and Abbas into the midday sun in Aqaba on Wednesday it seemed unbelievable that each was wearing a suit and tie. No sweat. The reason? A White House special effects team had rigged an air-conditioning unit under the dais.

The same detailed choreography went into the language of the White House-approved statements of Sharon and Abbas as they seemed to step out on the road to freedom - or is that peace. But it was so hard to tell exactly what was meant, that some Middle East observers will have to put the brake on scepticism, lest they veer into cynicism.");document.write("

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Take one of the critical cause-and-effect elements on the Middle East crisis: it is the existence of Jewish settlements on Arab land that provokes, or causes, much of the Palestinian violence. It would be obvious to conclude that for the violence to stop, the settlements should go.

So what did Bush mean when he said that Sharon would have to "deal" with the settlements? There are hundreds of them, along with linking roads and tunnels that only Jews are allowed to use, in defiance of United Nations resolutions.

Sharon spoke of dismantling only of a handful of "unauthorised outposts", the van-and-trailer camps that might simply be moved elsewhere on Palestinian territory, with a lot of Israeli protest noise but with little diminution of the Israeli presence on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

But even as this offer went on the table, Sharon's construction crews were hard at work on a multibillion-dollar fence to separate Israelis and Palestinians - sometimes it encroaches more than six kilometres into the West Bank; sometimes it separates Palestinian villagers from their own fields; and at the town of Qalqiliya it all but encircles the town, effectively isolating it from the rest of what would be Palestine. Sharon could not let the word "Palestine" pass his lips so he resorted to the more cumbersome "Palestinian state". For his part, Abbas could not get out the words "Jewish state".

Bush called on the Israelis to agree to a "continuous" Palestinian state - but later Ari Fleischer said that what the President really meant to say was a "contiguous" state that, depending on your dictionary, seemed to make the removal of the settlements less than a done deal. And an explanation of Sharon-speak offered on the day didn't help - a series of bridges and tunnels could make "territorial continuity" out of "territorial contiguity".

But this is all penny pinching. The fundamentals are the fate of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital; what to do about the settlements; and the emotional trigger point for the Palestinians of their right, or their descendants', to return to homes and land in what now is Israel proper.

Sharon seemed to be saying that the majority of the settlements, and that means the most developed, were not negotiable. And Bush seemed to be ruling out the Palestinians' claimed right of return when he spoke of Israel as a "Jewish state" - that guarantees a Jewish majority that returning Palestinians would dilute in a matter of years.

And even before Sharon had finished his end-of-summit speech, his aides issued a series of "clarifications". Just like Fleischer, they were saying that their leader was not saying what he seemed to be saying. So when Sharon talked of a "viable" Palestinian state, he meant an "interim" entity; one that must be demilitarised; it would be the only national home for Palestinian refugees; its police and interior forces could have only light arms; Israel should control its air space; and it could not form alliances with Israel's enemies.

So is Bush pressuring Sharon? The President said later that he had told the Arab leaders that he would be "riding herd" on the process, but he volunteered that he did not know if they knew the meaning of the expression. But would he dare use US aid to Israel worth billions of dollars a year as a stick? Might he insist on what will probably be the only effective circuit breaker to the violence - interposing a military force between the parties?

Or is Sharon playing with Bush? The Prime Minister did not use the word "occupation" as he did a few days earlier to describe the Israeli presence on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But people were consistently using words they didn't mean. It's probable that he was searching for another word, because this man's military and political career has been built around a belief that pre-1967 Israel is nigh on impossible to defend - that an Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley and settlements across the West Bank that can become forward defence posts are essential to Israel's national security.

But something did happen. Importantly, Bush insisted US monitors would make the call on the efficacy of Palestinian efforts to end the violence - Sharon had been insisting Israel make that call. And Bush put Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice in charge of the process - they're the two among his staff who reportedly enjoy the least respect in the Sharon camp.

And in case anyone thought there might be a serious effort to meet the road map's timetable for a Palestinian state by 2005, senior Sharon aide Raanan Gissin, was quoted: "A political solution is a long process. It doesn't happen in one generation."

The Palestinians welcomed this first serious intervention by Bush in the Middle East crisis. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Sha'ath said: "I think we have enough today to give us a real opportunity for hope."